Pakistan floods: U.N. appeals for aid with a third of the country underwater

CHARSADDA, Pakistan — A third of the country underwater. More than 1,000 people killed. And an estimated $10 billion of damage done.

“Monster monsoons” in Pakistan have swept away lives, homes, crops and bridges as weeks of historic summer rain fuels deadly flash floods. Almost half a million people have been displaced, with vast areas cut off from supplies and power.

Footage shared with NBC News shows torrents sweeping away multi-storied buildings and inundating people up to their necks.

Experts and local officials have drawn a direct line to man-made climate change, saying it illustrates how countries with the lowest contributions to the global crisis are becoming increasingly vulnerable to its effects — and in dire need of urgent aid.

Related video: Floods and landslides in India leave at least 50 dead

On Tuesday, the United Nations issued a flash appeal for emergency funds, urging the world to give the South Asian nation its attention and aid.

“It was not less than a doomsday for us," Asghar Ali, a 56-year-old farmer who was forced to leave his home in the northern town of Charsadda last Friday, told NBC News.

"Thousands of people just didn’t have time to shift precious households to safe places,” said Ali, who now lives in a makeshift shelter alongside the Islamabad-Peshawar motorway with his livestock.

“We saved our lives but the houses filled with floodwater. Life here on the motorway is a curse,” he added.

Pakistan’s government has said over 33 million people in the South Asian nation, around 15 % of the population, have been affected by the extreme weather.

The extreme floods have killed at least 1,136 people since June, including 386 children, and damaged a million homes, Pakistan's government said.

Although rains stopped three days ago and flood waters in some areas were receding, large areas remain submerged.

The heavy floods have left a third of the country under water, according to climate minister Sherry Rehman. She has called this "the monster monsoon of the decade" and described the situation as a “climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.”

Authorities backed by the military, rescuers and volunteers have been battling the aftermath, but local officials and aid groups say the scale of the crisis means Pakistan cannot cope on its own.

The government declared a state of emergency and on Tuesday the U.N. launched an appeal for $160 million in emergency funds for the country.

“Pakistan is awash in suffering,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a video message for the launch of the appeal. “The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids — the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding.”

The country’s south, southwest and north have been the hardest hit by the floods.

The waters have also destroyed roads and bridges, further complicating relief efforts, chief minister of the southern Balochistan province, Mir Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo, said at a news conference on Monday.

“Life has become terrible here,” said Riaz Khan, a resident of Kalam valley in Pakistan’s picturesque northern Swat district. "We have been cut off from the rest of Pakistan since Aug. 25 as the floods had swept away roads and bridges linking us with the downtowns," he added,

He said the floods had left the valley's entire population of 40,000 without power supplies.

Aid groups are also calling for immediate assistance.

“We’re seeing complete devastation," Khuram Gondal, Save the Children’s Pakistan Country Director said in a press statement on Monday. "It is clear that this is a massive humanitarian and climate emergency. Children are always the worst affected."

The floods are also a financial catastrophe, sweeping away crops, livelihoods and crucial infrastructure.

The country has already suffered losses equaling $10 billion due to the flooding, its finance minister Miftah Ismail told reporters on Monday. Around 90% of cotton crops have been destroyed in the Sindh province, according to its chief minister.

“As compared to the 2010 devastating floods, this time casualties are less but the economic losses are much more” said Mahmood Khan, the chief minister of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Over 1,700 people died in severe flooding in Pakistan in 2010.

“Most of the roads and bridges in the hilly areas of the Malakand region had been washed away in the floods, causing billion rupees of losses.”

The IMF's executive board on Monday agreed to release around $1.1 billion to Pakistan in the seventh installment of a bailout program to avoid default.

The flooding has prompted warnings from activists that the effects of climate change are being disproportionately felt by countries that have done little to contribute to it relative to the likes of the United States.

Fahad Saeed, an Islamabad-based analyst for Climate Analytics, said the group's analysis showed the flooding was made 30 times more likely due to climate change, citing a heatwave prior to the flooding that saw temperatures soar past 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

Weather experts say higher temperatures directly lead to heavier rainfall as warmer air has a greater capacity to hold water, a phenomenon seen around the world in recent weeks.

Saeed described Pakistan's flooding as the "worst in the country's history" in terms of people affected, warning it may worsen as the current monsoon season is still not over.

The “unprecedented” heatwave that hit Pakistan this year has also accelerated the melting of glaciers in mountain ranges near northern Pakistan, Dr. Mohsin Hafeez, Pakistan Country Representative for the International Water Management Institute said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

This threatens further floods as that water could join the rain that has come crashing down from the northern mountains.

“People here are bearing the brunt of global climate change," Islamic Relief Worldwide’s CEO Waseem Ahmad said in an emailed statement on Tuesday. "Pakistan produces less than 1% of the world’s carbon footprint, but its people are suffering the biggest consequences."

Mushtaq Yusufzai reported from Charsadda, Pakistan, and Rhoda Kwan reported from Taipei, Taiwan.